Just as it is difficult, at the moment, to edit a film without Virginie Efira, it is almost impossible not to have Roschdy Zem on film. Even more true since he received the César for best actor in 2020 for ” Roubaix, a light “. This is the case in the series “Notre-Dame, la part du feu”, where he plays General Ducourt, chief of the firefighters of Paris. A man of honor, a little disillusioned, who has been fighting fire for three decades and has decided to resign. He has seen too many deaths and especially that of his son Ben, a few months earlier. But when the fire arrives, he is on the ground, determined not to leave any firefighters in the rubble…
Several fates
To retrace the tragedy, which took place three years ago in the famous Parisian cathedral, several destinies intersect: Alice (Megan Northam), a firefighter from Paris, returns to the field after two months off, still very shocked by the death of Ben, her lover. She is sent to the cathedral of Notre-Dame, towards the corridors, to try to stop the flames… under the orders of Ducourt. There is also an ex-boxer restaurateur (Simon Abkarian) who desperately searches for his drug-addicted daughter, Colonel Varèse (Caroline Proust), the ambitious young journalist from a famous news channel who manages to slip in among the firefighters to film , a little boy who is looking for his firefighter father… “What interested me was these tens of thousands of gazes turned at the same time towards Notre-Dame, in emotion, whether they were believers or not”, explains Herve Hadmar. Everyone crosses paths, and through skilful flashbacks, the puzzle falls into place. In an interesting but sometimes heavy dramaturgy: we get lost a little in these intertwining lives.
Unlike Jean-Jacques Annaud who had filmed the race against the clock to save the burning building, the director of “Pigalle, the night” relied on the book “The night of Notre-Dame by those who saved it”, written by the Paris fire brigade and the journalist from Le Point, Roman Gubert. And on the technical and financial resources of Netflix to realistically reconstruct the cathedral and bring it back to life: 79 days of filming, 93 actors, 27 stuntmen, 300 people behind the scenes and 3,008 extras, in Bourges cathedral, but also in the studio. , in a setting which they set on fire.
Everyone has their own inner fire
To make this choral film credible, Hervé Hadmar was inspired by “Magnolia” by Paul Thomas Anderson and “Collision” by Paul Haggis. Faithful to the spirit of his previous series, he gives a metaphysical meaning to fire, like an inner blaze, for everyone different, but which sets us all ablaze: drugs, fear, pain, love… Finally, a few winks of esoteric eyes irrigate this series, which is more human than spiritual, like these statues of the apostles which would have been removed from the spire of the cathedral only four days before the fire due to works, and were supposed to protect it… One of the good back-to-school pickaxes.
To see on Netflix.